Suction catheters are used to remove respiratory secretions and other material from airways, and in general for treating or preventing a number of respiratory conditions. For example, when patients develop pneumonia or bronchitis they cough to clear the airways. If, however, the pneumonia worsens enough to require intubation with an endotracheal tube and placement on a ventilator (breathing machine), patients are unable to cough (due to sedation and the mechanical impediment of the endotracheal tube), and so suction catheters are passed into the endotracheal tube to clear the infected mucous and thus improve the ability to breathe and to help treat the infection. Suction catheters may also be used in patients without pneumonia to prevent the occurrence of pneumonia or other respiratory complications. However, the right bronchus (airway) is straighter and of greater diameter, so that suction catheters passed into the trachea go into the right bronchus more than 98% of the time. This anatomic fact is well known by all physicians (pulmonologists, surgeons and anesthesiologists) who manage the airway.
The current suction catheters are passed blindly into the trachea and cannot be directed into either side. They are connected to the endotracheal tube, and kept on the patient's bed inside a sleeve that is not sterilized, and allow the bacteria to grow and accumulate. Thus, the catheters become contaminated, contaminate the sleeve, and re-introduce the same bacteria back into the patient's airway when suctioning is repeated. Thus, it re-introduces the problem that it is designed to eradicate: infected secretions.
Because usually only the right lung is cleared of secretions, the left lung becomes a reservoir of infection, even if the right lung is the source of infection, as secretions from either lung move or contaminate the opposite lung. If the right lung is the source of the pneumonia, for example, this reservoir may be limited. However, if the left lung is the source, it will never be cleared by standard suctioning, and often requires bronchoscopy. This failure to clear the lung prolongs time on the ventilator, prolongs the recovery time from pneumonia, and increases the risk of developing resistant infections and of dying from pneumonia.
Together, pneumonia and influenza represented a cost to the U.S. economy in 2005 of $40.2 billion, $6 billion due to indirect mortality I costs and $34.2 billion in direct II costs, according to the American Lung Association. According to preliminary mortality data from 2011 from the CDC, age-adjusted death rates decreased significantly from 2010 to 2011 for 5 of the 15 leading causes of death (heart diseases, Malignant neoplasms, Cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and kidney diseases). However, the age-adjusted death rate increased for six leading causes of death: Chronic lower respiratory diseases, Diabetes mellitus, Influenza and pneumonia, Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, Parkinson's disease, and Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids. Three of these causes (chronic lower respiratory disease, influenza and pneumonia, and pneumonitis) are all variants of pneumonia. These data demonstrate that pneumonia is an already dangerous disease that is becoming more deadly.
There exists a need for improved treatment and prevention of pneumonia and other respiratory conditions and complications.